


The Harder Road

by astolat



Series: Fast & Furious works [5]
Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Prison, Prison Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 13:30:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4264989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/pseuds/astolat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Hobbs caught them in Rio, they didn't get ambushed, and they didn't get away. (AU diverging from Fast Five.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Harder Road

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to Mollyamory for beta! <3 
> 
> This is a prison story, so caveat lector.

“Two years’ probation,” Mia said, as soon as she got close enough to the partition for them to hear her, and Brian heaved a gasp like somebody had been holding him underwater.

“Signed?” he demanded, and she nodded a little. He let his forehead drop to his folded hands, almost shaking. “Thank God,” he said hoarsely. “Jesus, Mia, thank God.” Dom put a hand on his shoulder, heavy with his own relief.

Her face was crumpling. “They want me to—”

“I don’t give a _shit_ ,” Brian said, lifting his head and wiping away tears. 

“You say whatever the DA wants you to say,” Dom said. She bit her lip and turned her face away from both of them, her hand slipping onto her belly. She’d started to show a little, the last two weeks since they’d seen her. 

After she left, they had a couple moments alone in the room, before the guards came back for them. Dom pulled Brian roughly into his arms, so fucking grateful. He put his hand on Brian’s head and held tight as Brian put his face down against his shoulder and breathed in and out, still shaking a little. “You did this,” Dom said. “You got her out. You got _them_ out.”

There at the end in Rio, Dom hadn’t had any room in his own head for anything other than despair: knowing he’d gotten Brian and Mia into this; knowing he’d gotten them all into this. Brian was the one who’d found the escape hatch. He’d looked out the back of the Humvee, the Marshals outside talking to the cops and getting ready to take them into custody, and he’d turned to Mia and said grimly, “Babe, I’m sorry, this is going to hurt.”

Dom remembered looking up from the long stare at his own leg irons, wondering what the fuck Brian was talking about. Mia had been staring at him just as confused, and then Brian had clenched his jaw and turned his head away, and without looking at what he was doing, he’d put his hand on Mia’s thigh and squeezed, brutally hard. She’d gasped, flinching. “I’m sorry,” Brian had said. “I’m so sorry, baby, I need to do the other one, try and move close enough—”

“Brian, ow! What are you— _no!_ ” she’d said suddenly, trying to jerk back from him, and that was when Dom had gotten it too, when Brian had said, his voice cracking, “Mia, the _kid_.” She’d already been crying, shaking her head, but she hadn’t fought him anymore. He’d grimly kept going: her arm, her other leg, leaving bruises in the shape of his hands on her skin, so she could tell the DA she’d been forced into all of it.

“We tell our lawyers we’re pleading not guilty,” Brian had told him, in the airplane. They’d been separated from her by then. “Turn down anything they offer us. The DAs hate jury trial, they’re especially gonna hate it because I’ve been decorated for courage under fire, and you’re fucking Robin Hood, and we’ll look good on the stand. They’re going to be scared shitless we get a jury who decide they like us more than they care about evidence. Mia goes to them, offering to testify, and they’ll cut her a deal.”

Not two months later, and Mia was safe, and the baby wasn’t going to be born in prison after all. Dom went back to his cell with something so big and painful inside his chest all he could do was kneel down by his bunk and put his head against his hands and say, “Thank you,” under his breath: for Mia’s freedom, and for Brian, who’d never blinked even when the public defender had said to him bewildered, “Mr. O’Conner, I have to ask you to seriously reconsider. You have no priors on the record. Right now, today, I can get you a deal for twenty to life, parole as soon as twelve. This goes to trial, you’re looking at life without parole.”

“No deal,” Brian had said, unhesitating.

What Brian _hadn’t_ said, not once, was _this is your fault_ , or _if I hadn’t come after you_ , and what took that up from kindness all the way to grace was that Dom knew Brian hadn’t even thought those words. He’d looked Brian in the face, and there hadn’t been anything in him even close to blame.

“Thank you,” Dom repeated, and crossed himself. He couldn’t find any other words to say; there weren’t enough words in any language on the planet. He got into his bunk and slept solidly, the whole night through. In the morning, doing the daily walk around the exercise yard, Roman fell in next to him and said quietly, “Look, man, I hate to say it, but we gotta talk to Brian.”

Dom kept moving, but that was just his legs; the rest of him stopped: his heart, his lungs, his brain, his guts. “I’m sorry,” Roman said, talking like he thought Dom was still there with him. “I know y’all were so worried about your girl, I didn’t want to say anything. But somebody’s got to talk to him. I’ll do it if you—”

“No,” Dom said, making his voice work again, because there was no other choice.

For once, blessedly, Roman stopped talking. He nodded his head a little and moved away, left Dom walking blindly on ahead.

#

They had lunch at the same time. Dom waited until Brian had finished eating, then pushed his own tray away untouched and jerked his head, silently. Brian followed him into the back corner of the room and they sat down together along the far side of one of the empty tables, facing the wall. “We need to talk,” Dom said, every word like broken glass in his mouth.

Brian huffed a short laugh. “Is this the _whose bitch do you want to be_ conversation?”

Dom stared down at his hands. “Brian,” he said, and couldn’t keep going. He wanted to start talking the kind of bullshit Roman would’ve been selling right now: _it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just for show, it won’t be that bad_ , when what he meant was _don’t fucking make me watch you die_. He’d done a great job not thinking about it before now, but he knew what was going to happen if Brian said no, if he tried to fight it out.

Brian looked away. “I’ve put a lot of guys into prison, Dom. I know the score.” He blew out a breath. “Do you mind?”

“No,” Dom said, forcing it past his closed throat. He minded enough to gut himself, but that wasn’t the answer Brian was going to get from him, some chickenshit _how about Roman_ , as if that could even have worked, as if he could’ve let that happen and not killed Roman himself with his bare hands.

Brian nodded. He started to get up, like that was it, like he didn’t expect anything more: the rest of his life looking at iron bars and taking it from the guy who owed him more than fucking life.

Dom caught his arm. “Whenever we can get some time,” he said harshly, and Brian looked down at him. “Whenever we know we’re not going to get seen. We go the other way.”  

“I don’t need you to do that,” Brian said after a moment.

“ _I_ need to,” Dom said.

#

It was the only thing he could do, only thing he could think of. At least they could be in it together. He could give Brian that, the only way he could bring respect into it, make it feel like something they could survive.

Dom had to be grateful to Roman, too, who for all his bullshit had some instinct for Brian, something Dom would’ve been irritated over any other time: what fucking business did Roman Pearce have, knowing Brian some way Dom didn’t. Or maybe it was just that Roman didn’t have a mountain of guilt sitting on his shoulders, weighing him down to the ground.

“I’m hurt, O’Conner, for serious,” Roman said to Brian in the yard the next day, in front of Tej and Leo and Santos, even Vince, all of them. “You don’t want some of this loving?” He waved a hand up and down himself. “How long have we known each other, and you think Toretto’s gonna show you a better time than me? Come on, did you at least make him put up some game?”

Dom could’ve fucking killed him, right then, except Brian laughed out loud and said, “Damn, I guess I should’ve held out for flowers,” grinning easily. Dom’s hands were still clenched tight, but after three breaths he knew Roman was right, fuck him: it was better to have it hauled out into the light, here among them, the people who all understood that this was about Brian having the will to live, to stay with them, and not about him being afraid to die.

And he wasn’t going to let Brian stand out there alone. “Don’t even start with me, O’Conner,” he said. “Like you aren’t already creaming yourself for the turnaround,” and if he’d had one second of hesitation about putting that in front of them all, about the _you fucking kidding me_ double-take it put on Vince’s face, he wouldn’t have given a shit after Brian had to look away a moment, swallowing hard.

Dom got the lawyer to get him a meeting with the DA, and then he kicked the lawyer out, despite all the guy’s objections. “I don’t think,” the DA started, but Dom reached out and picked up her tape recorder, switched it on and said directly into it, “I’m waiving my right to counsel for this meeting, I’m sending my lawyer out of the room on purpose, and I’m as sane as I’ve ever been,” and after he put it down in front of her raised eyebrows, she shrugged a little and let him send the guy out, and then she said, “All right, Mr. Toretto, what would you like to talk about?”

“I want to make a deal,” Dom said.

“Really,” she said, a little dry smile on her face that pissed Dom off, like she thought she understood what this was when she didn’t know shit. But he needed her, so he swallowed the rage and kept his voice level.

“Not that kind of deal,” he said. “I’m not expecting to get out of Lompoc again while I’m alive.” She stopped smiling and frowned at him. “What I want to know is if there’s anything you want that I can give you. You want me to go ahead and plead after all, to whatever you want, I’ll do that now. You can give me the worst fucking deal in the world you want, I’ll sign it. You want us to go to trial and throw it, make you look like a hero in front of your bosses, we’ll do that, too.”

She was staring by now, so at least she was listening. “Okay,” she said slowly. “And in return—”

“I want O’Conner assigned as my cellmate,” Dom said.

She sat back in her chair. “That’s not something I can do.”

He looked at her. She was young, maybe Mia’s age, in a crisp suit; she’d had the kind of life Mia should’ve had, the kind of life Brian had given up for him. “I don’t know you,” he said quietly. “So for all I know, maybe you aren’t going to mind in six months when you hear that the guy you sent to prison died worse than an animal, beaten to death and gang-raped on the floor while he was bleeding out.” She flinched a little. “You don’t have to care about that: we made it here on our own choices, that’s not your problem. But it is mine. And that’s why I’m asking if I can make it worth it for you to care. So how about it?”

#

Brian was just too fucking beautiful. Dom had known him for six years now, had seen him beaten up and worn out and filthy; first thing in the morning and last thing after a two-day drive, and even after all that, he still got caught by him sometimes. His eyes would just get stuck on the light hitting Brian’s eyes and the curve of his cheek, and then he’d be watching Brian for a solid minute before he even noticed what he was doing.

It wasn’t just him, either; he’d seen the same thing happen to other people: girls, guys, anybody. Didn’t have much to do with _wanting_ him, exactly; it was just hard to look away when Brian was in front of you, like you couldn’t be sure he was even real.

And that was outside, even in crowds of beautiful women and hot guys. Here in Lompoc, eyes started following him the second he came in the gate. Dom had to stare down half a dozen guys before they even made it to the cell, and the guys across the hall didn’t even pretend they weren’t watching Brian the whole time he unpacked. They didn’t even look away when he went behind the partition to take a leak; they kept looking until he came back out to wash his hands and face, and when Brian straightened up and ran a damp hand through his hair, one of them puckered up and gave a wolf-whistle.

Brian dropped his hand like he’d just been shocked, and before he could turn around and say anything, Dom slammed his fist against the cell door, loud enough to make it bang. “Let’s pretend I didn’t hear that, and you don’t get your fucking ass kicked in the morning,” he said through his teeth with all the murder in his heart behind them, and the guy put up his hands, backing off.

The two of them still kept watching out of the corner of their eyes, though, and the whole fucking hallway was paying attention, and nobody was going to keep off Brian just because he was Dom’s buddy; if he was up for grabs, they’d grab.

The hallway lights went dark: half an hour to lights-out. Dom went to take a leak himself. He sat down on the toilet and put his hands over his face. He wanted to fucking vomit. Then he got up and pissed and flushed, went out and washed his hands, and then he took the lotion out of his toilet kit and walked over to the bunks where Brian was lying down on the bottom, looking at a book he wasn’t reading. Dom took the book out of his hands. Brian looked up at him. Dom reached out and turned out the cell lights, got them as much dark as he could, and then he got in the bunk.

He planned on making it as fast as he could, as easy as he could. Brian kept getting in the fucking way, though, twisting under his hands, moving, pushing Dom’s hands to other places on his body. Brian wasn’t shoving him off, because if he had, Dom would’ve had to get off him, no matter what that would mean; but Brian also wasn’t letting him get the job done, and Dom had no clue what he was up to until Brian finally grabbed his head and hissed in his ear, “Fuck you, Toretto, put some fucking _effort_ into it, or I _am_ going to go with Rome.”

Dom could’ve punched him. He was trying to get through the worst fucking night of his life. He hadn’t thought anything was ever going to beat the night he’d watched his dad die, but this was blowing past it at two hundred per, because it hadn’t been his _fault_ that his dad had died. And Brian fucking wanted _foreplay_? What the fuck did he think this was, did he think—

Dom had to stop, just put his head down and shut his eyes a moment, letting the nightmare go. Then he put his hand around Brian’s head and kissed him.

Brian kissed him back: no hesitation, no flinching; the same way he drove with five hundred horses under him, fully committed. His hands slid over Dom’ back. Dom ran his hand slowly up Brian’s side, felt Brian relaxing under him, tension running out like he’d just wanted Dom to get with the goddamn picture, like that was the only part he’d been worried about.

They made out for what felt like forever. It took some getting used to, thinking about Brian this way. It was just so fucking _strange_ : Brian’s body was solid hard muscle and he smelled like a guy who hadn’t had a shower since yesterday and he had a _dick_ , and they both got hard after a while, which only made it more weird to have him shoved up against Dom’s hip, nothing he’d ever been interested in before. But Brian was a good kisser, and Jesus, that was weird to know like this, to feel Brian’s mouth under his, meeting him; and Brian’s hands were as strong as iron, and his skin was warm and smooth, and it had been a long time since anybody had touched him like this; not just for sex, but to make love.

They went fast, when they went. Brian abruptly groped around in the sheets for the lotion. Dom was panting by then, and when Brian got hold of him with a slick, wet hand he was instantly hot for it, helplessly. And then Brian got his own dick into the picture, gripped them both in his hands. Dom jerked without meaning to. His dick slid along the length of Brian’s, and Brian jolted under him.

Dom grabbed the lotion and squirted it out on his fingers. Brian let his head fall back panting while Dom got him slicked up too, and then he hooked a leg around Dom’s waist to haul him in and Dom sank almost halfway without even working for it. Dom pushed his face into the crook of Brian’s neck and stifled a groan. Brian’s hand was gripping his skull, and Brian’s hips were jerking up to try and meet him, _still_ no hesitation. Dom got hold and pressed all the rest of the way in.

And then Dom was _inside_ him, and Brian was sprawled under him with his mouth open, gasping silently, jerking his own dick. Dom shoved Brian’s hand away and got hold of him, stroked him in time, Brian’s breath getting forced out of him in short pants with each thrust, and _yes_ , holy fucking shit, _yes_.

“That enough goddamn effort for you, O’Conner?” Dom muttered afterwards, still heaving for breath.

Brian shook with a choked-down laugh. “It was okay. Room for improvement,” he whispered back, and when Dom tried to rear up and glare at him in indignation, Brian bit his ear, sucked the lobe hard into his mouth, and _Jesus fucking Christ_ , Dom wanted to go again _right the fuck now_. His dick jerked against Brian’s, and Brian pushed his hips up into it, practically saying _yeah, okay, again_ , _now,_ and they were about to fuck a second time when the door at the end of the hall clanged: the guards were doing the night round, checking beds. They’d been having sex for an hour.

Brian grabbed his head and kissed him, hard, one last time. Dom scrambled out of Brian’s bunk and hauled himself up into the top, dragged the sheet over himself and turned to the wall to pretend he was asleep before the flashlight beam came into the cell and swept over him. His whole body felt alive, humming like an engine.

#

Turned out Brian was right: there _was_ room for improvement. After three weeks, though, they used up a lot of it. They were going at it every night, all over each other the second the lights went out. Dom had thought it was going to be like taking a few swallows of drain cleaner every day: instead the real problem was going out of his mind because he couldn’t find a way to make it happen the other way around.

Everybody had got the memo that Brian was taken, but apparently the next best thing was watching him get it, like he was a porn star or something. Anytime they tried to make it in a closet or a back corner or something, guys walked in on them on purpose, took their sweet time walking out again. Dom couldn’t even start a fight over it. They had a long time ahead of them in here, and there was a hard line between getting a reputation as a solid guy, somebody you didn’t want to mess with, and an asshole on a hair trigger you’d just as soon shank in the next riot. None of the party crashers was being disrespectful about it, they apologized after; they just _happened_ to come in.

And after the first few times, Brian decided it was fucking funny. He started _teasing_ Dom over it at night, slipping him a finger while they were going at it, trash-talking him in whispers about how he was going to fuck his brains out when he finally got the chance. Dom couldn’t tell him to lay off, because he’d promised and he wasn’t keeping his promise, so taking it was as close as he could get, except around the third time Brian started working on him, Brian managed to hit some kind of joyride spot, and after that Dom fucking _wanted_ it, and he still couldn’t get it. Brian noticed and got even more creative, the asshole, and Jesus, Dom was about ready to kill somebody for fifteen fucking minutes of privacy.

Everything else was settling. People had given them a hard time for the first couple weeks, because they didn’t stick to the race lines: Dom could swing South Side but Tej and Roman didn’t speak Spanish, and Vince couldn’t swing anything but Aryan Brotherhood. But Mia had been working the street racing scene outside: Dom had come in with the names and cellblocks of a lot of guys whose girls she’d talked to, and he’d made a point of going around the first few days. Not to ask for anything or offer anything; he’d barely done anything but nod to most of them, _hey you had that yellow Impreza, right?_ and bump a fist, but it did the job. Enough guys knew him, of him, to pass the word he was a guy to respect, and people knew the racing scene crossed lines anyway: it made their crew make sense. After there were a few conversations at meals about the jobs they’d run, races they’d driven, most guys backed off.

The end of the second week, a handful of AB guys did give Vince just a little too hard a time, an elbow in the mess hall line that knocked his tray all over him. That was the excuse Dom had been waiting for: he and Vince and Leo put the four of them down hard but not brutal, and fast enough that they were melting back into the line by the time the guards got there. After that, everybody else backed off, too: he’d made the point that they weren’t easy targets, weren’t looking to be assholes either, and enough people knew he was a lifer by then, a guy who didn’t have anything left to lose. They weren’t worth picking a fight with. He and Brian got jobs in the auto shop, Tej got one working on computers, and by the end of the third week, everything seemed okay.

Or as okay as it could get, with fifty years of the same stretching out ahead, except one morning Dom stared up through the undercarriage of a broken-down Volvo and realized he _was_ okay. Brian was with him, he had family at his back, engines under his hands, and if this was going to be the rest of his life, that didn’t scare him. He was even feeling something like happy, although he was confused about it. Lompoc had been the end of the world for him for so long.

But he couldn’t deny it for long: yeah, he was happy. Getting laid every day did fucking wonders for a guy’s mood, and him and Brian were even starting to fit a couple extra rounds in the day when they had a chance. What the fuck else was there to do, even if Vince was starting to get weird about it. One day Tej even ran interference so Roman could drag Brian to a corner of a mess table and have a hissed conversation with him, like he thought Dom was _making_ Brian do it. That nearly got Roman’s head beaten in, except Dom couldn’t get mad at him for looking out for Brian.

“Jesus, Rome, forget it,” Brian said, rolling his eyes, and then he said, “Anyway, I’m bored out of my fucking skull,” which maybe should’ve been a warning, but it was too close to what Dom had been telling himself, and so he didn’t pay enough attention.

The week after, he was on KP duty after lunch. A black guy from the auto shop, somebody Dom nodded to in the halls now, carried a stack of trays over to his sink and bumped him a little. He leaned over like he was apologizing and muttered, “Some of the Pollies going after your two brothers in the laundry today,” before straightening up and walking away.

Dom gave him a couple of minutes to get clear, then snagged the guy next to him. “Two packs if you do mine,” he said, and the guy said, “Hey man, sure,” because that was twice the going rate.

He slipped out of the kitchen and headed for the laundry, fast, but by the time he got there, he had to stop and keep around the corner: there were four guards at the door, and whatever had happened was already over. Dom counted fucking seconds until he heard the guards say, “Everybody else get the fuck out,” and Roman and Tej came around the corner, Roman with a hand over his bloody nose and Tej looking exasperated.

“Shit, Dom,” Roman said, sounding congested. Three other black guys from the Pollies slunk by covered with white powder and streaks of blood, darting looks at them and Dom as they went past.

“You all right?” Dom said, looking hard at the guys, marking their faces, making sure they saw him do it: he wanted them to know they were on his fucking list now. “What the hell happened?”

“Oh, what the hell happened,” Tej said. “What happened is five of these clowns here decided they wanted to talk a little smack to us, on account of we hang with light dudes. So we were having a discussion about it, and then Brian—”

 “What?” Dom said sharply. “Brian was supposed to be on mop duty with Santos.”

“That guy Rodriguez mouthed off to a guard, got himself sent to the mops, they gave Brian folding detail instead,” Roman said.

“Goddammit,” Dom said: that shit was always happening with Brian.  

“Yeah,” Tej said. “So Brian informed them that they could go fuck themselves, and _they_ decided, in their infinite fucking wisdom, to tell him that if he needed something to do with his mouth, he could suck their cocks with his pretty white bitch mouth. So then he slung a fifty-pound sack of laundry powder at their heads and beat the shit out of them. Two of them got taken to the infirmary.”

“Where the fuck is _Brian_?” Dom said.

“He beat down five guys, Dom, what do you think?” Tej said. “It took both of us and a guard to haul him off. They took him to the hole.”

“Jesus!” Dom said. 

“Yeah, don’t you worry too hard about that,” Roman said, wiping blood off his nose. “He’s all right, he didn’t take more than a couple of punches. That’s not the issue. We’re gonna have a serious-ass problem with that boy.”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Dom said.

Roman glared at him. “Are you shitting me? You’re laying him three times a day and he’s still off the chain, you think this isn’t gonna be a problem? Dom, man, he was _grinning_ when he sailed into those motherfuckers, he was having the time of his life.”

Dom told himself Roman was full of horseshit, and anyway a trip to the hole was going to teach Brian a lesson if he needed one, except two days later Brian showed up in the cell at lights-out, bright-eyed and smiling at Dom tolerantly while Dom made sure he was all right, and when Dom demanded to know how he was doing, Brian just said, “I’m fine, man.”

“You were in the fucking hole for forty-eight, O’Conner,” Dom said sharply.

Brian shrugged. “Forty-eight hours with nobody staring at my ass, man, it was fine,” cheerful without putting it on even a little, and then he dragged Dom down on top of him on the cot, and turned out he was already hard and ready for it, and _shit_ , Roman was right, they were fucked.

“I don’t know what to tell you, man,” Roman said, when Dom swallowed his pride and talked to him about it. “I don’t think he’s getting a lot of shit, but nobody’s giving him respect, either, and he’s just not built to take that, you know? Brian’s so fucking friendly most of the time it’s like, camouflage or something, you don’t even notice he’s ready to go every goddamn minute of the day. But he _is_.”

“Yeah,” Dom said grimly. And he couldn’t even blame Brian for it: guys checking him out all day, every day, like there was nothing stopping them but somebody else’s protection, he’d have fucking been ready to go, too.

“Yeah, man, me too, but not like him,” Roman said. “I don’t think Brian’s even all that mad about it, he just—he just _liked_ it. He beat up five guys, he got to show he’s not just a bitch, he got forty-eight hours to himself in a dark room after to come down in, I think that’s his idea of a good time.”

Yeah, especially when you added on _and got laid_ right after. Dom rubbed a hand over his head.

He tried to make sure there was always somebody with Brian, after that, but there was only so much he could do. It did help that enough people had heard about the laundry room stunt to start to understand that Brian was a fucking wolf underneath no matter how much he looked like a nice fluffy lamb.

But Mia came for a visit a couple weeks later. She could only be on one of their lists, because Brian wouldn’t let her marry him, so Dom didn’t get to see her; he waited in the cell until Brian came back, his face completely blank.

“She’s fine,” he said, flat, and sat down on his bunk without another word. His fists were clenched. Dom slowly sat down next to him, and after a few minutes Brian opened one of his hands and smoothed out a crumpled little scrap of shiny paper, an ultrasound picture in black and white, a little hand open and waving out at them. “It’s a boy,” he said, and his voice cracked up like a car going off a cliff.

Two days later, a guy standing behind them in the mess line made a comment to his pals, just loud enough Dom caught something about Brian’s ass. Brian turned around and slugged him to the floor, and it was on: the asshole was in La Eme, and six of their guys waded in behind him. None of their own crew were any closer than the far side of the mess hall, it was just him and Brian, and that meant they couldn’t pull any punches. Brian didn’t want to, anyway; his eyes were shining like fucking stars and completely emptied-out of anything like a thought. The first thing he did was grab one guy by the head, smashed him right through the glass and the fucking mac and cheese into the boiling water underneath, and then he used the screaming guy as a goddamn battering ram to knock down three of the others.

The guards actually slowed down as they got close, involuntarily, because Brian was unleashing everything he had, and Dom hadn’t even _known_ everything Brian had. He’d put down three of the guys himself with solid hits, but Brian was destroying the rest of them, turning steam trays and chairs into weapons, and Dom had to grab him bodily and haul him off before he carved out the first guy’s eyeballs with a plastic spoon, Jesus fucking _Christ_ , and Brian was shaking in his arms and trying to fight loose to keep going.

They were both in the hole for a week after that, plenty of time for Dom to think about all the ways they were going to be fucked when they got out. He was right, too; he hadn’t even made it back to his cell before one of the trustys passed him in the hall and told him the llavero wanted to see him.

“Yeah, no shit?” Dom said, and took a detour to the library.

“Can’t let you get away with that shit, man,” Ramirez said bluntly. Dom knew him by reputation, though they hadn’t exchanged words before. He wasn’t an asshole, but he was cold-blooded, the kind of guy who never lost his cool and had columns of numbers running in his head. “Moro’s a pissant, but he’s _my_ pissant, and I know you know it.”

It stuck in Dom’s throat to do anything like apologize, but he controlled it. “Yeah. Brian’s having a hard time,” he said. “His girl’s having their kid, he’s never going to see it outside.”

“Uh huh, that’s some tough shit,” Ramirez said, no sympathy at all. “Give me a fucking break. He’s not your girlfriend, he’s your fucking hitman, and you let him off the leash. I had six guys come tell me about it, some of them had blood on their clothes from ten feet away. My people count on it they ain’t going to get beat down like that.”

“What do you want?” Dom said, cutting to the chase, because he wasn’t going to start making excuses, showing his belly. It wasn’t going to get him anything, anyway.

“You’re lucky, because we got a thing going on right now, we want things quiet,” Ramirez said: probably meant he was working some kind of deal with the warden or the senior guards. “So you can get off easy. Tomorrow after dinner, you bring him to the weight room. All my guys who were in it get to take a ride on his ass, and afterwards he apologizes and kisses their feet. Then we’re clear.”

Dom turned and walked out, because he didn’t need to hear any more. Brian was already back in the cell when he got there, doing pushups on the floor; he stood up when Dom came in. He still had a bruise on his cheekbone, nothing else. A couple of months inside had bulked him up some, muscle going on fast with the carbs and all the exercise; he looked tall and golden and beautiful, fucking impossible against the grey and gunmetal of the cell. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly; Dom could see he knew, too.

“Don’t you fucking dare apologize to me,” Dom said, and he put his hands on Brian’s head and kissed him, hard, not giving a shit that the lights were still on, and pulled him over to the bunk.

“Dom,” Brian said, kissing him, moving with him. “Dom, I don’t—”

“Shut up, O’Conner, and get up on here,” Dom said, because what fucking difference did it make now. Brian got it, groaned and climbed on him, between his legs; they were already shucking their jumpsuits, wrestling their arms loose, kissing, and then the cell door was banging open, one of the guards saying, “Jesus fucking Christ,” in a disgusted tone, and Brian reared up looking like he was about ready to kill.

Dom grabbed him by the arm, held on hard. “What the hell,” he said.

“Get the fuck up, Toretto, you’re coming with us,” the other guard said, hand on his taser, and Dom gripped Brian’s arm harder, said to him low and flat, “ _Don’t_.” Brian nodded after a moment. Dom got shoved into leg irons and taken out, one last glimpse of Brian alone in the cell behind him. They marched him through six hallways and into an admin room with an actual to God window in it. Hobbs was standing there with a manila folder in his hand and the same familiar scowl on his face: the only expression Dom had seen there since he hadn’t staved the guy’s skull in with that claw hammer.

Dom stared at him. “What the fuck do _you_ want?”

Hobbs managed to look even more pissed off. “Your team,” he said.

#

**Part II**

 

It was some fucked-up whiplash, going from Lompoc walls to the whole London skyline wide open in front of him, having to relearn how distance vision worked. Dom just stood and stared out the window for the whole two hours they were waiting for Han and Gisele to arrive, coming from the other side of the world: they were the only ones who’d managed to slip the net in Rio. Gisele gave him a fierce hug as soon as she got into the room. “We were going to find a way,” she murmured to him. Dom hugged her back, and didn’t tell her they would’ve been too late. He bumped fists with Han, and then he turned around as Hobbs came in behind them for the briefing.

Brian hadn’t said much since they’d been hauled out of Lompoc; he’d spent most of the time on the plane sleeping. He sat on the edge of the table and listened to Hobbs lay it all out now, and then after Hobbs had finished and said, “Any questions?” Brian said, “Yeah, why are we helping you with this, again?”

Hobbs turned a cold look on him. “You want a ride back to Lompoc anytime, O’Conner, you just say the word.”

“See, that’s kind of my point,” Brian said, unbothered. “Tell me why we’re not just taking the first exit as soon as you put us on the road after this guy?”

“You want Letty Ortiz back or not?” Hobbs said.

“I’m the one who put her undercover, so yeah, I do,” Brian said. “I really fucking do, but I’m thinking we could probably get her back just as easy if we just catch up to this guy Shaw and ask him if he wants a few more drivers for _his_ team.”

“Brian!” Roman hissed. “Uh, he’s just playing with you, man!” he said louder to Hobbs, but Brian didn’t bat an eye.

“No,” he said. “No, I’m fucking not. You want us on board, _really_ on board, it’s going to have to be pardons, all around.”

“Oh, you think so?” Hobbs said. “Five to ten, possibility of parole for good behavior, and that’s my best offer.”

Brian gave him a sunny smile. “Me and Dom have a La Eme death sentence on our heads.”

Hobbs glared at him. “You were in Lompoc for less than three months, how the fuck did you manage that?”

“He’s got a _gift_ ,” Roman muttered.

Brian just shrugged. “Well?”

“Goddammit,” Hobbs said. “Fine. You get me Shaw, you get your fucking pardons. And if you even _think_ of running or flipping on me, I will slam your asses back inside Lompoc so hard La Eme are going to have to scrape you off the floor before they can kill you.”

#

After dinner, Dom took the 2012 Charger out while Tej and Han started beating out the final specs of the car designs. He hadn’t driven in seven months: it almost felt unreal to be in the leather seat, steering wheel in his hands and open road ahead, and he stopped at the exit of the garage and stared out at the street for a while.

The 1970 Escort pulled up next to him in the mouth of the garage. “Hey,” Brian said, leaning over. “Seven centavos says I beat you to Big Ben and back here.”

“Seven centavos?” Dom said, raising his eyebrow.

Brian grinned at him. “I had some change left in my pants pocket. It’s all I’ve got. Well?”

Dom found himself grinning back. “You know I’m gonna take you for it, O’Conner.”

“Big words, Toretto,” Brian yelled back, gunning his engine, and then they both ripped out of the garage and hit the road.

Hobbs was pissed off when they finally got back, complaints rolling in from the London traffic cops behind them, but Dom shrugged. He felt fucking fantastic. “You want us rusty behind the wheel when we hit the road against Shaw?”

“From now on, you want practice time, Toretto, you get it on a track,” Hobbs said, _still_ scowling.

“That guy’s gotta work on his blood pressure,” Brian said cheerfully as they went upstairs to sack out. There were a dozen cots spread out in the rooms on the second floor; Dom picked one at random with a couple in it, and Brian shut the door behind him, and they were halfway out of their clothes and making out, heading for the nearest cot, before Brian suddenly jerked back a little and stared at him, and Dom stared back confused before he realized they were _out_ ; they weren’t in prison anymore, and this wasn’t something they did.

He opened his mouth to tell Brian _fuck it I don’t care_ , and then he remembered that he had to care: Letty was _alive_ , he was _married_ ; and Brian had a kid coming with his _sister_ for Chrissakes, and he could see Brian remembering all of it at the exact same fucking time. He started to back away. Dom grabbed for him, on instinct; he couldn’t help it, but Brian looked at him helplessly: _what the fuck else can we do?_

“I fucking pay my debts, O’Conner,” Dom said, out of desperation, because it was the only excuse he had. He had three months of Brian giving it up to him to make up for, and it wasn’t fucking going to work to have that sitting between them, uneven like that; it was going to fuck them up, and Dom kept selling himself that bullshit every step of the way to the cot as Brian shoved him down and climbed between his legs.

Dom gripped the top of the cot and clenched his teeth and worked hard to keep it together as Brian got into him, slow and steady and _careful_ with him, taking his time, taking breaks to kiss him ferociously. There was a pounding in Dom’s left temple, almost blinding, and he was fucking opened up like the hood of a car Brian was overhauling: getting up to his elbows in Dom’s engine.

Brian figured it out, all of it; figured _him_ out. Dom was running with sweat, his fucking head was going to come off, and Brian’s dick just kept coming at him, pushing him all the way up to the limit with Brian gasping, “Dom, Jesus, going to _own_ you,” like he didn’t already, going crazy over him, kissing him so wildly he couldn’t hit Dom’s mouth more than one in five and it didn’t matter, nothing fucking mattered.

“Come on,” Dom panted, “come on, O’Conner, _take_ me there, come _on!_ ” and Brian groaned and took it up a level, and oh Christ, his cock sliding in and out so sweet and easy, getting in him right where it belonged—where _Brian_ belonged, under his fucking skin, so deep in his guts Dom was never going to get him out, so deep nothing in the world was ever going to get him out, _fuck_ —

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Brian sobbed out, and kept riding him the whole way through the aftershocks, kept going, his teeth clenched and trying not to be finished, like he didn’t want to end; like he was going to stay right there up in him the rest of his life.

“Jesus, Dom,” Brian said after, so groggy he was slurring.

“Yeah,” Dom said, his hand resting on Brian’s head. Yeah, nothing had changed. They were still completely fucked.

#

Shaw and his goddamn tank nearly took them out on the road, but Dom managed to catch Letty before she got thrown off the overpass. It was her, it was really fucking her, and when he sat up and saw her face, scraped up a little and baffled and pissed-off and _her_ , he couldn’t even care that Shaw was catching a helicopter right out of there with the piece of shit hardware he’d wanted all along and Hobbs’ assistant Riley in the back seat smirking down at them. Hobbs dragged himself up to his feet out of the road: there was blood leaking out of his shoulder where the woman had shot him. “Goddammit!” he bellowed, furious, but Dom just lay back, breathing deep; his whole body hurt and he’d probably broken some ribs, but Letty was alive, and safe, and right now that was all that mattered.

And then Brian’s car screamed past them on the highway, slowing down only long enough for him to shove Roman out of the passenger seat onto the pavement. Then Brian ran it up the wreckage of the two cars under the front treads and onto the tank, launched into the fucking air, and _jumped out_.

Dom jerked up to his feet, yelling, “Brian!” his heart falling out through the bottom of his guts. Brian just barely caught the landing strut as the helicopter lifted away. He managed to haul himself up, get one leg over. Then Riley looked out with a gun in her hand.

Brian locked his foot around the strut and let go, grabbing out his own gun as he fell backwards, bullets missing him as he went swinging upside down by the one leg. He shot Riley in the face. She went toppling out of the helicopter, and Brian swung himself up and grabbed the strut again, and as Shaw looked out, furious, Brian aimed at the tail rotor and emptied his gun. The bullets punched eight holes into the blades, and the helicopter started going out of control, wobbling, tail swinging back and forth with Brian still clinging to the strut.

There were a bunch of abandoned cars sitting on the road where people had got out and run away from the oncoming tank. Dom ran for the nearest SUV and drove it straight at the metal cord still stretched across the highway from the crashed tank, threw himself flat as it hit the SUV mid-windshield and ripped the top off the entire car, shreds of metal and glass raining down on him. He shook his head clear and sat up and wheeled the car around. He reached an arm back and managed to shove the back seats flat as he drove.

The chopper was whipping around in circles now as more of the tail rotor flew off. Dom drove straight towards it, got underneath and started taking the SUV around in the same tight circles, trying to match speed. The helicopter was death-spiraling down, moments left, and his wheels were skidding on the pavement. He looked up, desperately, managed to line up for a second—

Brian let go and slammed down into the back. Dom wrenched the wheel over and floored the gas, got them out from under just as the front of the helicopter smashed into the highway and exploded into a ball of liquid flame, shockwave jumping the SUV forward, wheels coming entirely off the ground. It toppled over and went skidding along its side. Dom hung on to the steering wheel and what was left of the seatbelt just trying not to get thrown wide, showers of sparks coming up off the road. The SUV finally slid to a stop, and his hands gave out. He thumped sideways down to the ground, slammed onto his shoulder, and rolled over, groaning.

Brian fell out of the back, next to him. “Hey,” he said, panting, turning his head to look at Dom. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, you owe me, O’Conner,” Dom said, wincing, gingerly feeling over his ribs. Those were definitely broken now, and he’d added a few more, too.

Brian pushed himself up in a few short, stiff movements and craned around the end of the SUV to look at the wreckage. “I don’t think he made it.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Dom said. He hauled himself upright slowly. He looked at Brian. Brian looked at him.

“That was pretty fun,” Brian said. 

“You crazy son of a bitch,” Dom said, and pulled him in and kissed him, bitter taste of smoke and burning tires and all.

By the time they finished, the rest of the team had gathered around them. Letty had trailed over with them, too; she was still gripping her left arm and looking wary, but she’d come along. And they were all staring pointedly down at him and Brian. Dom eyed them all back.

Roman broke the silence. “All right, O’Conner, I guess I’m gonna forgive you after all,” he said to Brian. “I get it, y’all just weird about each other,” and they were all laughing, a little hysterically, as Hobbs limped up to join them.

“So, mission accomplished, huh?” Tej said to him.

“Good enough.” Hobbs snorted. “I was hoping to put Shaw in a cell, but a body bag’ll do me just fine.”

“Not sure what you’re going to put inside it,” Han said, looking over the smoking wreck.

“We’ll wait until the whole mess cools, grab a handful of ashes, and call it a day,” Hobbs said. Sounded just fine to Dom. He shut his eyes and leaned back against the wreckage, Brian’s shoulder against his.

#

Hobbs was going to fly them back to L.A. They didn’t have a lot to pack except their shiny new pardons, and nothing much waiting for them back there but the 800 square-foot one-bedroom Mia had rented. Han was going to have to spring for all their bus fares to get there, for that matter. But it was still going to be home.

Dom went to take a leak before they left, and when he came out Brian had disappeared off somewhere. Letty was perched on a table, talking quietly to Han, getting filled in a little bit. She glanced over at him, thoughtful, and yeah, he was going to have to talk to her. As soon as he figured out what he was going to say.

He’d had to save Letty, had to get her on the road back to herself and the people who loved her. That was always going to include him, but once upon a time she’d made him a deal of a heart for a heart, all of her for all of him. He knew Letty, even if she didn’t know herself yet. She wasn’t going to be interested in anything less, and she’d seen him and Brian together. The last thing she was going to do was let him get away with pretending it wasn’t there, that it didn’t matter to him like the promises he’d made her.

He looked at Roman, who jerked his head towards the hallway. “He went to talk to the Hulk.”

Dom headed down towards Hobbs’ office, following the sound of voices. “There’s something else I need,” Brian was saying.

Hobbs sighed, audible three doors away. “O’Conner, you just got a full pardon and a plane ticket home. What are you looking for? A sack full of money and a cheering crowd?”

“I want a job,” Brian said, and Dom pulled up short outside the door.

 Hobbs had paused and sat up, tilting his head. Brian was in front of his desk, hands in his pockets, calm and steady. “And why on God’s green earth would I be stupid enough to take on a guy who’s broken his oath of service twice?”

 “Because _I’m_ stupid enough to shoot down a helicopter while I’m on it,” Brian said.

 Hobbs actually snorted a laugh. “I’ll hand it to you, O’Conner. I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit, but that was something special.” He studied Brian. “You want to tell me why you want to work for me?”

“I’ve got a girl and a kid coming who need me to have a paycheck and a life insurance policy,” Brian said. “Is that good enough?”

“Get a job as a racecar driver. Your odds will be better and so will the pay,” Hobbs said. “Try again.”

Brian was silent a moment. “I just spent three months locked up,” he said finally. “The only thing that kept me sane in there was Dom, and I’m not sure he did, by the end. I was ready to die. Hell, I was getting ready to take him _with_ me.”

“Is this supposed to be selling me?” Hobbs said.

“Yeah,” Brian said. “Something happened to me in there, and it’s not going away. And sure, I could go race cars or jump out of planes or get into street fights just to get it out that way, but that’s all bullshit. That’s not what I want to be for my son. If I’m going to be risking my life, worst-case if I’m going to get killed, I want it to be for a fucking reason. I want him to be able to be proud of me, even if he’s also pissed at me for checking out. _That’s_ why.”

Hobbs said, “You start on the twenty-fourth.”

Dom walked away down the hall, and went into the empty office next door: Riley’s, he guessed, from a glance at the stuff lying around. He sat down heavily on the side of the desk, looking out the window at that same London skyline. He couldn’t tell Brian that it was the wrong thing to do. He’d seen the wildness looking out of him that day in the mess; he’d seen it yesterday, Brian taking on a helicopter by himself, ready to jump with no parachute required. That wildness didn’t belong inside a house, with a family and kids. Maybe someday after he’d worked through it, or if time just settled it down. But Brian wasn’t going home to stay. Not like this.

“Hey,” Brian said, and Dom glanced back at him in the doorway. Brian came and perched on the desk at his side. “You heard?”

“Yeah,” Dom said.

“You know I’m going to do everything I can to take care of Mia.”  

“You don’t even need to tell me, O’Conner,” Dom said. “I’m sorry.”

“Now who’s apologizing?” Brian said.

“This is different,” Dom said. “My bullshit got you into all of this in the first place.”

“You think I wasn’t headed for a crack-up anyway?” Brian said. “I was always looking to drive through walls. You and Mia just gave me something worth heading towards.” He nudged up against Dom’s shoulder, leaned in and kissed him. Dom slid his hand into Brian’s hair: it was starting to get long again. Most guys shaved their heads in prison; Brian had let his grow, like an extra fuck-you to everybody looking at him. It felt good under his hand, with Brian’s mouth under his.

“You know I’m not letting you do this alone,” Dom said, when he let Brian go again, and he hadn’t planned on saying that, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew they were nothing but the truth. It wasn’t even a decision, just a fact. The relief of it filled his chest up like taking a first deep breath.

Brian dropped his eyes to his hands. “What about Letty?”

“ _Now_ you’re thinking about Letty, after you banged me like a goddamn drum,” Dom said.

“Fuck you,” Brian said earnestly. “Three fucking _months_ , Toretto.”

“Yeah, you’re entitled to some more payback,” Dom said. “But if you’re gonna stay alive long enough to collect, somebody’s going to have to keep an eye on your crazy ass. I don’t know what business you’ve even got being alive after that helicopter stunt.”

Brian grinned at Dom. “I had a little help.”

“Oh, a _little_ help,” Dom said, and slung an arm around his neck.

# End

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback loved! If you like, [reblog](http://astolat.tumblr.com/post/123316998678/happy-fourth-weekend-here-have-a-prison-au)!


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